323Re: [Tomy Tutor ] Cartridges on Tape?

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Davey Brain

Oct 17, 2003

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Neil Morrison wrote thusly:

> Is there anything 'funny' about the ROMs? Perhaps it could be
> possible to make clone cartridges. Another way we did it on the R/S
> Coco was to put RAM in a cartridge.
>
> On the original Model I Level I TRS-80 you could load M/L and execute
> it by overwriting the stack. When you returned from the CLOAD routine
> you jumped to the M/L routine.
>
> Neil

Are you familiar with the TI-99 computers? The RAM cart trick was done
on the TI-99. There are carts that allow you to load it with mulitple
carts and choose from them. As I understand it there were also carts
that allowed you to save the carts ROM contents to disk and exec them
with either the ed/ass cart or TI-Writer (which had a ML loader
built-in. The most famous was probably the Gramcracker cart. The Gram
comes from the fact that TI used a proprietary graphics ROM called a
GROM to try to force people to license the tech from them and let TI
produce all the software for the TI-99 (bad policy IMHO). These later
carts simulated a GROM in RAM to allow you to use them. I had quite a
few "aqquired" cart games on disk but they were all RAM-only carts like
the Atari and Parker Bros games. It was later that they developed the
GRAM carts.

I don't know much more about this as I never got into the GRAM scene
because when I was using my TI-99/4a I didn't have enough money to get
any of those. I couldn't even afford a 2nd disk drive or a DS drive, so
I had the one stock SSSD 90K drive and that was all. By the time I was
out of school and could afford those things I'd moved on first to the
Franklin Ace/Apple ][ computers and then to a Leading Edge Model D
DR-DOS 4 machine with GEM 3.

BTW, glad to see Corey in the group. I tracked the Tomy I posted about
here & wished I could have afforded it. If that is the one then he got
it for a bargain price with his the only bid, which surprised me.
Either the bottom has fallen out of the Tutor market or this one sneaked
past. I paid $92 for my first one & $75 for my backup one and don't
even have a manual. The $92 one lasted about 6 weeks before it blew-up
the main PS capacitor. I found a functional replacement but the
computer is flakey now so the PS must have sent a surge that damaged the
ROM on it. So I use my BU now, not as pretty but it works.
--
Davey Brain
dsbrain@NOSPAM!neosplice.com ordsbrain2001@...!com

"Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth" - John F.
Kennedy